Advertisement

Companies Like PKS Holdings (ASX:PKS) Can Afford To Invest In Growth

Just because a business does not make any money, does not mean that the stock will go down. For example, although software-as-a-service business Salesforce.com lost money for years while it grew recurring revenue, if you held shares since 2005, you'd have done very well indeed. But while history lauds those rare successes, those that fail are often forgotten; who remembers Pets.com?

So should PKS Holdings (ASX:PKS) shareholders be worried about its cash burn? In this report, we will consider the company's annual negative free cash flow, henceforth referring to it as the 'cash burn'. Let's start with an examination of the business's cash, relative to its cash burn.

View our latest analysis for PKS Holdings

Does PKS Holdings Have A Long Cash Runway?

A cash runway is defined as the length of time it would take a company to run out of money if it kept spending at its current rate of cash burn. When PKS Holdings last reported its balance sheet in December 2019, it had zero debt and cash worth AU$4.3m. Looking at the last year, the company burnt through AU$912k. Therefore, from December 2019 it had 4.7 years of cash runway. A runway of this length affords the company the time and space it needs to develop the business. Depicted below, you can see how its cash holdings have changed over time.

ASX:PKS Historical Debt April 6th 2020
ASX:PKS Historical Debt April 6th 2020

Is PKS Holdings's Revenue Growing?

Given that PKS Holdings actually had positive free cash flow last year, before burning cash this year, we'll focus on its operating revenue to get a measure of the business trajectory. While it's not that amazing, we still think that the 16% increase in revenue from operations was a positive. Clearly, however, the crucial factor is whether the company will grow its business going forward. For that reason, it makes a lot of sense to take a look at our analyst forecasts for the company.

How Easily Can PKS Holdings Raise Cash?

While PKS Holdings is showing solid revenue growth, it's still worth considering how easily it could raise more cash, even just to fuel faster growth. Generally speaking, a listed business can raise new cash through issuing shares or taking on debt. One of the main advantages held by publicly listed companies is that they can sell shares to investors to raise cash to fund growth. We can compare a company's cash burn to its market capitalisation to get a sense for how many new shares a company would have to issue to fund one year's operations.

PKS Holdings's cash burn of AU$912k is about 7.5% of its AU$12m market capitalisation. Given that is a rather small percentage, it would probably be really easy for the company to fund another year's growth by issuing some new shares to investors, or even by taking out a loan.

So, Should We Worry About PKS Holdings's Cash Burn?

It may already be apparent to you that we're relatively comfortable with the way PKS Holdings is burning through its cash. For example, we think its cash runway suggests that the company is on a good path. Its revenue growth wasn't quite as good, but was still rather encouraging! Looking at all the measures in this article, together, we're not worried about its rate of cash burn, which seems to be under control. On another note, PKS Holdings has 3 warning signs (and 1 which is a bit unpleasant) we think you should know about.

Of course PKS Holdings may not be the best stock to buy. So you may wish to see this free collection of companies boasting high return on equity, or this list of stocks that insiders are buying.

If you spot an error that warrants correction, please contact the editor at editorial-team@simplywallst.com. This article by Simply Wall St is general in nature. It does not constitute a recommendation to buy or sell any stock, and does not take account of your objectives, or your financial situation. Simply Wall St has no position in the stocks mentioned.

We aim to bring you long-term focused research analysis driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis may not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements or qualitative material. Thank you for reading.